Most doors used in construction today are of the “pre-hung” type. More particularly, the door and door frame are prefabricated and are sold as a unit. The entire door and door frame unit is then installed by the purchaser. A large percentage of these pre-hung doors are made entirely of wood and are installed as entry doors. While entry doors are intended to function to exclude uninvited guests when locked, they are often inadequate for that purpose.
Entry doors, particularly residential entry doors, typically include both a primary door knob lock assembly, or lockset, and a supplemental deadbolt. Typically, when an entry door is closed, the lockset latch bolt protrudes from the entry door into an appropriate opening in a strike plate. The strike plate is typically affixed to the door jamb of the door casing by two screws.
A deadbolt typically acts as a supplemental lock to ensure that the entry door remains closed. When the deadbolt is activated, the deadbolt latch bolt protrudes from the entry door into an appropriate opening in another strike plate attached to the door frame.
Unfortunately, even when lock sets and deadbolts are used, it can be relatively easy for an intruder, such as a burglar, to gain entry to the dwelling or business by forcefully kicking the door in the general vicinity of the door lock latch bolt and/or the deadbolt latch bolt, thereby breaking the door jamb where the strike plates are located and allowing the door to be opened.
Two ways to ameliorate this problem were described in my prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,070,650 and 8,132,832, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. In particular, the latter patent shows how to include a strike plate with a door jamb reinforcing system, but applicant has found that there are inefficiencies in the manufacture of that mechanism. One of the problems encountered with reinforcing both the door and the jamb is that adding either reinforcement of a conventional design narrows the small gap between the door and the jamb, so there is not sufficient room to add the second reinforcement.